COMPUTERS ON WHEELS

All-digital, personalized dashboards of the future, shown at CES, aim to transform the car

Twenty years ago, one of the coolest things people owned was their car. Today, it’s more likely to be their smartphone or tablet.

That fact hasn’t been lost on the auto industry, which increasingly sees vehicles as rolling, Internet-connected consumer electronics devices.

At the International Consumer Electronics Show this week in Las Vegas, several carmakers showed off the latest in everything from in-car navigation and entertainment to collision-avoidance systems. Automakers exhibiting included Audi, Chevrolet, Chrysler, Ford, Hyundai, Kia and Lexus. Other carmakers, such as Tesla and Rolls-Royce, had their cars displayed in exhibits of their technology partners.

At the booth of chip maker Nvidia, Rick Tewell demonstrated what vehicle dashboards might look like in the not-too-distant future based on a cluster concept from auto industry supplier Delphi.

The dashboard was all digital. It could be personalized to an individual driver’s tastes — with several display options. And it used graphics to convey navigation and vehicle performance information.

The dashboard included a video game-like image of the car. The image could be customized to match the make, model and color of the actual vehicle. If a sensor found a problem — say with the right front tire — the image rotates to face the driver and flashes a red light around the exact tire.

“Then, with the click of a button, it takes me over to a map that directs me to the nearest garage,” said Tewell, senior manager of automotive software for Nvidia. “It also can talk though Google and tell me the closest garage that actually has my tire.”

“And then, with the intelligence of these new processors, it will be able to say you’re not going to make it to the nearest garage, so it goes ahead and calls roadside assistance for you.”

For cars on the market today, electric carmaker Tesla has perhaps the beefiest technology panel out there. The roughly $50,000 Tesla S comes with a 17-inch touch screen display in the center console. The car is connected to the 3G wireless network for streaming Internet music.

Google Maps is integrated with the onboard navigation system. There are a variety of other apps to help drivers, including hands-free calling, energy use monitoring and rear camera viewing.

Some carmakers provide Internet connections by embedding wireless modems inside the car. Audi announced the 2013 Audi A3 will include a 4G Long Term Evolution wireless chip from Qualcomm. The carmaker says it will have the first vehicle with high-speed 4G wireless access to the Internet.

But other carmakers have opted to connect to the Internet through the driver’s own cellphone rather than embedding a chip. There are pros and cons to each approach. The problem with embedding a chip is that it requires a separate service charge for the wireless data plan, and the modems could become outdated, said Doug VanDagens, global director of Ford Connected Services.

“You’ve got a processor sitting in your car for eight years, which is the average life of a car,” he said. “The average life of a cellphone is 18 months.”

Ford uses the “bring your own device approach.” It offers a software development kit that lets programmers built apps that work with Ford’s steering wheel controls, radio display and voice recognition technology.

“The neat thing (for app developers) is they take this code, embed it in their app, and nothing changes for them,” said VanDagens.

“They code in the language they are used to. Customers get updates. If you have Pandora on your phone, if you jump into a Ford car, it works. You have voice control over the app.”

The company now has 23 apps enabled to work with its system, including many Internet radio apps. It launched nine new apps that would work with its Sync system at the show, including ones from USA Today, Amazon Cloud Player and The Wall Street Journal.

The bring-your-own-device option can be a problem if the cars’ electronics don’t work well with different phone operating systems out there.

So Chrysler introduced a bit of both approaches with its Uconnect system, which includes a 3G modem in the select models but also allows drivers to use voice recognition and steering column controls to link to their phones.

Lexus showed off some of its work with collision avoidance research at the show. Its system uses cameras and sensors to find obstacles. The car then automatically engages safety features, ranging from stiffening the shocks for better control during hard braking to making the steering more responsive.

Qualcomm also demonstrated its Halo wireless charging system for electric vehicles using a Rolls-Royce concept car. The system recharges batteries though plates that sit on a garage floor, eliminating the need to plug in the car for recharging.